What with being ill over the past few days, I have committed a heinous familial sin; I have missed my brother Paul’s birthday and needs must make amends. In addition Angie has just caught the nasty little virus I’ve just had, so while I’m having a few days off I shall be playing nurse while she sits in bed and catches up on her viewing of ‘Millennium’. I’m not so keen on it, but then again, I never really liked the X files or any of that genre all that much either. It’s okay, but I’m really just not that interested.
Notwithstanding; I have presented Paul with a small pewter pocket flask and an unusual Malt Whiskey to fill it with for his birthday along with an apologetic birthday card and hope he forgives me for my failing. Perhaps he can wet his lips with it when he goes playing his bagpipes and think well of his erring younger brother once in a while.
I haven’t written much this last week. It’s not that I’ve been lazy, it’s just that what with one thing or another, the mental cogs have not been meshing very well; ergo, my output has been waning. To be honest I think I just need a good rest.
Showing posts with label Birthday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Birthday. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Birthday
My dear lovely wife Angela surprised me beyond measure yesterday by taking me first to a very nice lunch at the Golden Cross at Ardens Grafton, thence to a very pleasant health spa at a place that was once part of the timeshare boom.
Walton Hall is currently undergoing a £23 million makeover to Hotel and Health Spa. The Health Spa is only a Gym with a small pool and associated Sauna and Steam room facility at present, but once all the rough edges on the site are ironed out and a few more services offered should be very nice indeed. Our bedroom had not just a shower, but a ‘wet room’ facility, which I never used, as I took all my showers over at the Gym. We had a large flat screen wall mounted digital TV where I discovered that despite all the extra channel choices, all television broadcasting is still pretty lowbrow. The room was air conditioned and spacious and the bed a very comfy king sized affair. The room had patio style doors which opened out onto a small lawned area where we sat this morning, reading the Sunday Telegraph. Very civilised. All for £139 for the pair of us. Comfy chairs too.
We drank some mini bottles of champagne that we’d brought along with us, fooled around and generally misbehaved together. We ate well, did I mention that the food was good, although I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try some of the starters on the evenings menu and ended up with an omelette instead.
Although I didn’t do any writing, but read a lot instead, I feel I could get used to this. As Angie observed; my big wide schoolboy grin was back after too long an absence. Don’t know what I’d do without her.
Walton Hall is currently undergoing a £23 million makeover to Hotel and Health Spa. The Health Spa is only a Gym with a small pool and associated Sauna and Steam room facility at present, but once all the rough edges on the site are ironed out and a few more services offered should be very nice indeed. Our bedroom had not just a shower, but a ‘wet room’ facility, which I never used, as I took all my showers over at the Gym. We had a large flat screen wall mounted digital TV where I discovered that despite all the extra channel choices, all television broadcasting is still pretty lowbrow. The room was air conditioned and spacious and the bed a very comfy king sized affair. The room had patio style doors which opened out onto a small lawned area where we sat this morning, reading the Sunday Telegraph. Very civilised. All for £139 for the pair of us. Comfy chairs too.
We drank some mini bottles of champagne that we’d brought along with us, fooled around and generally misbehaved together. We ate well, did I mention that the food was good, although I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to try some of the starters on the evenings menu and ended up with an omelette instead.
Although I didn’t do any writing, but read a lot instead, I feel I could get used to this. As Angie observed; my big wide schoolboy grin was back after too long an absence. Don’t know what I’d do without her.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Fifty
On the 12th of March this year (2007) I attain the age of fifty. This means I have lived for five decades. Fifty rotations of the Earth around the sun. Two hundred seasons. Fifty Springs, Summers, Autumns and Winters. Six hundred calendar months. Two thousand, six hundred weeks. More depressingly; two thousand, six hundred Monday mornings. Over Eighteen thousand rotations of the planet. Wow.
A lot has happened in that time; space travel, digital technology, the Internet. A lot of bad stuff has happened as well; Wars, Famines, plagues; but the good news is that humanity is still going strong. People still think it’s worth the effort and time to raise a family (Although for others, children are the unforeseen consequence of unprotected sex). Trees are still growing; the tide still comes in twice a day. The world is not dying; it’s thriving. Despite all the doomsayers and apocalypse addicts. Life adapts, it is a wonderful thing.
My downside is that writing success has so far eluded me, but I console myself it’s only a matter of time before the break happens and I make the transition from dilettante to professional. I’m still breathing and reasonably healthy; which is better than many of my contemporaries.
Of course I hate my day job; but doesn’t every writer? It’s just a means to an end even if my employers want me to treat it as the whole reason for my existence. Employers for me are simply a temporary resource; a meal ticket for which I have to pay the penance of hard graft and occasional physical discomfort. It’s also occasionally a source of humiliation, but again; it won’t be for much longer. I’ll either quit and go contracting for the last few months, or swallow my pride and carry on until July, when we pack up and try to make a new life overseas.
My raison d’etre sits in the next room and has intimated that she is going to treat me to ‘something very nice’ for my fiftieth birthday. Bless all of her tiny toes. I do so love that woman. Sometimes I wonder why she loves me, but she seems to.
A lot has happened in that time; space travel, digital technology, the Internet. A lot of bad stuff has happened as well; Wars, Famines, plagues; but the good news is that humanity is still going strong. People still think it’s worth the effort and time to raise a family (Although for others, children are the unforeseen consequence of unprotected sex). Trees are still growing; the tide still comes in twice a day. The world is not dying; it’s thriving. Despite all the doomsayers and apocalypse addicts. Life adapts, it is a wonderful thing.
My downside is that writing success has so far eluded me, but I console myself it’s only a matter of time before the break happens and I make the transition from dilettante to professional. I’m still breathing and reasonably healthy; which is better than many of my contemporaries.
Of course I hate my day job; but doesn’t every writer? It’s just a means to an end even if my employers want me to treat it as the whole reason for my existence. Employers for me are simply a temporary resource; a meal ticket for which I have to pay the penance of hard graft and occasional physical discomfort. It’s also occasionally a source of humiliation, but again; it won’t be for much longer. I’ll either quit and go contracting for the last few months, or swallow my pride and carry on until July, when we pack up and try to make a new life overseas.
My raison d’etre sits in the next room and has intimated that she is going to treat me to ‘something very nice’ for my fiftieth birthday. Bless all of her tiny toes. I do so love that woman. Sometimes I wonder why she loves me, but she seems to.
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